NO! GTFO, THATS NOT A REAL PORSCHE. THATS A POOR-SCHE; YOU ONLY BUY ONE BECAUSE YOU’RE POOR!! ITS A LEFTOVER HALF ABORTION FROM VW THAT THOSE FUCKS AT STUTTGART- oh we get to drive it? Ah this we did not consider.

Another Porsche review!? Right after that Cayman? Actually, this and the 5’er that will follow came from the beginning of summer. We’re not made of money (yet), we’re just shit with timing. Anyways, what’s the deal here?

Well, a long time college friend of Sir Pierce and I finally finished rebuilding and restoring the car. So, naturally, it wound up in our dipshit hands. Also, we have some history with the 944. I’m a “Porsche fan”, and by that I mean I pray to the gods of air cooled 911’s and endurance prototypes every night so that one day, I may have my own 906 to drive off into the sunset. Naturally, I don’t think all that much of the 944 other than “cool car but ‘eh’”. And Pierce? His ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend had one. He crashed it. It’s gone. Enough said.

With all that rambling to justify our dumb reasons for not really giving a shit about the 944 said, how about was some words of excitement.

One word actually:

Oh yeah, an 80’s turbo car. It’ll start as a gutless i4, then all of a sudden BAM, an injection of adrenaline up the ass. Wake up bitch, it’s turbo time. And an 80’s turbo Porsche! Dude, their early turbo road and race cars are monsters! The widow-maker 930, the all concurring 962, hell the lowly 924 can be made appealing with the addition of that badge. Even the owner warned us to be on the lookout for when the car comes on boost.

Damn then, this 944 has gotta be one hell of a ride right? 80’s turbo lag followed but a surge of power to the rear! All without driver aids!

Gonna be raw fun right!?

Right?

And there lies the unfortunate truth… it’s still a fucking 944…

You approach this car wide eyed because, like, look at it:

It’s screaming 80’s sports car. The wedgy shape, the pop ups, those box flares… the 944 and 924 before it defined a generation of sports car design. The Starion, Supra, and FC RX7 all seem to fall from the same basic body mold as this car. And it’s a Turbo! And red! And then you open the door and it gives you that Porsche “clunk”. Hell, almost everything about this car gives you that “full fat Porsche experience”. The leather, the switches (from the 911), hell even the smell. Even the gauge clust— well I’ll complain about the gauge cluster later. You insert the key to the left of the wheel, fire up the engine, and go for first. It idles a bit rough, but what 944 doesn’t by now?

And to me, that’s when those 993 memories start to come in. The weighty clutch feel, the mechanical linkage connected to the gear lever, that direct and unassisted steering… I’m back the classic “classic Porsche experience”! Fuck me how I’ve waited to feel that again.

You can tell it’s a car that can be unsympathetic to laziness and stupidity. Direct like the Germans who made it, if you feed it dumb or lousy inputs, it will let you know. These are the kind of cars that talk to you more through the clutch pedal than some modern cars do as a whole. And now the excitement is growing. You’ve got an image in your head of what this thing is like, as all the Porsche pieces come together. Turning out of the parking lot, you get a stretch of open road and open THE T U R B O P O W E R. BITCHE-

There isn’t any.

At least, it doesn’t feel like there is any. You’re expecting something to happen. A loud woosh, a surge forward, wheel spin if you’re aggressive enough… and instead… it’s just more of the same, just a little quicker. And I did try to beat on the car a bit, you’ve read these reviews. 1st pulls a little hard from a near stand still, but as you go through the gears till 4th (5 speed), you don’t really seem to notice boost or acceleration. All you get, is the vague sound of someone blowing air by your ear as the car peaks at 2 bar of boost (29 psi, damn ok then), and the car moves a little faster. That’s it. That’s your “crazy” 80’s turbo sports car. That 220 hp and 245 ft-lb is good for around a 6 second 0-50, and a top speed just north of 150mph. That’s not bad, especially for its age. Hell, my 2000 2.8L z3 gets that 0-60 time, but you get hit with BMW i6 torque down low, noise, and a bunch of rear end squat. This car is a drama-less affair. No fuss, just proceeding.

And then a realization hit: Is this a boring sports car or a fun GT car?

Who bought these new? Sure it’s quicker than a base 1988 911. However, it’s also a 3000 lb car in 1988, lathered in leather and clothed in a steel body. It’s very serious on the inside, with tactile switches and a clear if uninspiring view out. It’s almost plush, it’s quiet, rides comfy, doesn’t scare you with boos- wait a sec.

It’s a fuckin’ mid-tier Yuppie mobile ain’t it? For that mid-level 80’s banker or telecom company manager. Start up quiet at 7am, cruise on the highway with generous stability at 100mph, then sit in traffic until you’ve reached the office. It makes a lot more sense as a more exciting GT car suddenly. Sure the controls are heavy and unassisted, but once you’re moving, it’s a pretty easy, kinda tame, and oddly quiet affair. It’s not a rude car to the outside world, and it’s a very fine place to sit in. But it’s a boring sports car 90% of the time.

The complaints don’t just end at the dead and uneventful acceleration either.

I find it oddly large and heavy for what it is, but maybe that’s just me. The exhaust note is very uninspiring. People who bitch about the turbo flat four in the 718 Cayman should really give one of these a shot. You know what, maybe I’m being too harsh here, the car first needs an exhaust note at all in order to draw comparisons. Half the time, it’s just vague i4 sounds muffled by a bit of whooshing from somewhere. However, that “whoosh” from the turbo also isn’t very pronounced. So you windup with a very quiet car from the inside.

The gauge cluster is also wrong:

Vs:

Fight me, but the tach should be in the center of the cluster. If they reused 911 parts for the interior, they could’ve used the same cluster. Plus, part of the “Porsche experience” is having that big tach on full display, lurking in the corner of your eye as you shoot for 7000 rpm. I’m going to sound like an old fart yelling at clouds but “it’s just the Porsche way”. Sue me in court, but you still can’t have my PCA membership. The other non-trivial anal thing to mention is the view out of the car, because it’s just not that remarkable. Hold your swears and recommendations on where to shove my opinions till end, I know these aren’t flaws worth hating a car over. But when you look out that wide expanse of front glass, you don’t have a view that makes you feel “80’s Porsche cool”. Mercedes has their star, Subaru has that hood scoop, and the 911, 912, 914, and Cayman/Boxter all have those front arches. Granted, this is a front engined car, but it leaves you a bit uninspired.

Ok so is there anything that’s redeeming about this “slow, boring, kinda-Porsche”? Well like before, interior is great, the car makes all those lovely mechanical clunks and tactile clicks, it smells like an old 911, and the ride is comfy. The acceleration according to the speedo is perfectly fine even though you don’t feel it from the seat of your pants. And then look at it! Sure, it’s not a 911, but does that thought really pop into your mind when you stand back and look at this car? The wide boxy fenders, the wedgy nose, the BBS wheels, the pop-ups, the rubber rear aero that will rot in a week if the Florida sun knows of its location… it’s an attractive sports car, and a hot 80’s one at that. You can “exude cool” by virtue of just driving it amongst normal traffic in 2024. And that’s before we get to the best part of this car: it still handles like a Porsche.

The 944 Turbo talks like a Porsche, especially an from the air cooled 911 years, should. Unassisted, talkative, and precise not only describes the steering, but every control you interface with to actually drive the car. The clutch is weighty and you will feel through the tips of your toes when it engages. The accelerator pedal is physically connected to the motor, no drive by wire bs like in the present day. The gear lever has a mechanical linkage, not a cable, connecting it to the transaxle.

It’s a recipe for a car that should be an excitable little bastard in daily driving, however in reality, you’ve put this package into a quiet, almost too refined driving experience to the point that it’s like a GT with some extra road feel through the wheel… until you throw it into a corner.

Then, the car stops carrying what you think it should be or isn’t, remembers it’s racing pedigree, wakes up, and fucks off. Do you care that it sounds like a leaking vacuum under throttle? Suddenly, no, because who needs to think about that when the car handles so damn perfectly around the few back-to-back corners we could throw at it in Florida? It’s like that Cayman we reviewed earlier, it handles so well that the stock sound doesn’t come into your mind while you’re mid-corner.

This car is nothing but solid and responsive as far as the eye can see. Everything makes sense in a corner, there’s nothing that surprises you, yet it’s still confidence inspiring. Just imagine if you made a chassis out of solid titanium, that equals the roll and chassis stiffness the 944 exudes. I feel like they built this thing from the ground up, spending the entire engineering budget on perfectly handling and sporty suspension but forgot to make the rest of it a well rounded sports car. It becomes a car that suddenly begs you to drive it with purpose, and shakes its head when reminded its new home is Florida and not the Appalachians.

Overall, the 944 Turbo is genuinely hard to place. It’s got some of the best sports car characteristics of its era, while having some of the most disappointing, slow and anti-Porsche aspects of any Porsche known to man. Either way, I get why this is below the 911, and it always should be. However, it is, sometimes painfully and joyfully, still a Porsche.